NATIONAL CELEBRATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1939, Page 5

NATIONAL CELEBRATION

LONDON WRITER'S COMMENT. With a history so rich and varied as that of England it is an astonishing reflection that a foolish Gunpowder Plot should be the sole event which still claims a national celebration every year, comments a London writer. Armistice Day is hardly an exception, for it brings a chapter to its close and its mood is one of sorrow and of hope that it may never be reopened, rather than of thankfulness for the achievement of final victory. Yet surely if any nation ever had cause to be thankful for its past afid to draw from it encouragement for its future it is ours. There ought to be at least one day a year when we should say with “Ecclesiasticus": “Let us now praise famous men. and our fathers that begat us. The Lord that wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by' their understanding and declaring prophecies.” And that day ought to be the day of England's patron saint (April 23), because his is an office that implies a blessing on our efforts. We err , grievously if we neglect the strengthening of spirit that a day of corporate pride in the past and of hope in the future can bring us. As a nation we need this sort of encouragement more than most. Temperamentally, we have an instinctive dislike which is wholesome for whatever savours of boastfulness; among ourselves we prefer to under-rate our achievement and to reduce it to terms of commonplace; we are capable of exaltation. but with us there is usually a reaction bringing back the very dangers from which by great effort we have just escaped.